Film Milestones in Visual and Special Effects from 1990 to 2004

Film Title/Year and Description of Visual-Special Effects	Screenshots
Babylon 5 (1993) This sci-fi TV series was the first to use CG as its primary means to create special effects. The animation effects were created or produced with off-the-shelf micro-computer systems.
Cliffhanger (1993) In various dangerous climbing sequences, actor Sylvester Stallone (as climber-rescuer Gabe Walker) was held up by wires - that were later digitally erased. In the film's tense opening scene, climber Sarah (Michelle Joyner) was supported by just a 1/8" wire (later removed), leaving her hanging 8,000 feet above the ground, before she appeared to fall to her death in the abyss below.
In the Line of Fire (1993) Because it was much cheaper to use footage of an actual 1992 Clinton campaign rally than to pay extras to rally, computers digitally retouched the images and replaced Bill Clinton with the 'faceless' president that agent Clint Eastwood was protecting. Computers also took an image of Eastwood from his earlier film Dirty Harry (1971), made it look even younger (gave him a digital haircut, shaved off his sideburns, narrowed his tie, and gave his jacket a digital lapel), and then implanted it into newsreel footage from JFK's 1963 Dallas airport arrival, taken with a 16-millimeter camera of JFK and Jackie Kennedy at Glover Field on the day the president was assassinated. The same effects were used for the Presidential encounters in Forrest Gump (1994).
Jurassic Park (1993) This film from Steven Spielberg was the Academy Award winner for Best Achievement in Visual Effects (defeating The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Cliffhanger (1993)). It mixed animatronic and computer-generated (CGI), photo-realistic dinosaurs - the first of their kind, displayed with textured skin and muscles. The CGI creatures were artificially-generated at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and very realistically-rendered and seamlessly integrated within live-action sequences. There were 14 minutes of dinosaur footage in the movie, with only four of those minutes generated by computers. The original plan to use stop-motion versions of dinosaurs was quickly scrapped when CGI became the better option. It was the first major instance of extensively having computer-generated animated characters mixed with live action. The scenes of the living, eating, and breathing dinosaurs (including the scene of the stampeding herd of Gallimimus) also used mechanical animatronic robots and miniature models in stop-motion, frame-by-frame processing. The scene of the night-time attack of the T. Rex on a lawyer cowering in a toilet used live action and digitization - the first example of a computer-generated human stunt double, involving hyperrealistic rendering. The T. Rex was shot using 20- and 40- foot tall animatronics. The 20 foot-tall model weighed over 13,000 pounds. Other models included a Triceratops and Dilophosaurus. As well as CGI and animatronics, the Velociraptors were also men dressed in rubber suits.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Tim Burton's masterpiece used sophisticated computer-controlled cameras to execute state-of-the-art camera movement for this feature film's stop-motion animation. Puppets (built of a foam latex material covering intricate metal armatures) were manipulated frame-by-frame on real miniature sets. The painstaking film took nearly three years to complete (dozens of animators and crew members averaged only 60 seconds of film per week), because each different pose or position equaled a 24th of a second.
The Crow (1994) Because actor Brandon Lee was unexpectedly and tragically killed on the set just before filming was completed, seven more scenes with him were needed. A body-double stood in for the missing actor - with Lee's face digitally-painted (or composited) on, and other scenes were manipulated. [The actual filmed death of Brandon Lee was never used in the film.]
The Flintstones (1994) In this live-action film based upon the 1960s Hanna-Barbera animated TV sit-com, there was the first instance of digital fur rendering - on saber-tooth tiger "Kitty" or Baby Puss - the Flintstones' family cat. The film ended with Fred Flintstone (John Goodman) attempting to put the cat out, but was put out himself.
Forrest Gump (1994) Robert Zemeckis' film was an Academy Award winner for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, defeating rivals The Mask (1994) and True Lies (1994), with its incredible computer-digitized effects: Forrest Gump's (Tom Hanks) digitally-composited interplay with historic events (Governor Wallace's standoff in Little Rock and his assassination attempt), including his meeting with three past Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) and other celebrities (Elvis Presley, John Lennon) the removal of Vietnam vet Lt. Dan Taylor's (Gary Sinise) lower legs Gump's playing of a Ping Pong game (with a digitized ball and crowd watching) in China crowd scenes (in the football stadium, and in the political rally in DC), using a replication special-effects technique and the fluttering feather (with the string it was attached to erased) in the film's conclusion
Insektors (1994) This TV series was the first completely computer-animated cartoon series to be broadcast. It told about two warring anthropomorphic tribes of insects (the Joyces vs. the Yuks). It first aired in France, and was then dubbed into English for US and UK television. Its appearance was only a few months before another completely-CG animated cartoon series was aired - the full-length Canadian action-adventure series called ReBoot.
The Lion King (1994) The remarkable wildebeest stampede scene blended 3-D computer animation with traditional animation techniques.
The Mask (1994) This film combined live-action with cartoons composited onto the frame - (the Mask itself, a cartoon-style gun, etc.). This marked the first instance of visual effects artists turning a live actor into a photo-real cartoon character, or the first film that blended live action with CGI for human effects. The lead character Jim Carrey was made to appear like the hyperactive cartoon characters of Tex Avery during the golden age of animation, especially in the scene when he wolf-whistled at a pretty woman and his eyes bugged out - looking like the wolf from MGM's and Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) cartoon.	Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)
Babe (1995) Revolutionary computer effects made it the Oscar winner for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, defeating the other nominee Apollo 13 (1995). The lips of animals moved in sync with speech, digitally-modified, so it looked like they were really talking.
Batman Forever (1995) In this comic-book film adaptation directed by Joel Schumacher, digital stunt doubles were used for intense action sequences. The same technique was becoming increasingly used in films, such as in Judge Dredd (1995).
Casper (1995) This was the first feature film with a digitally-created, CG character that took a leading role (almost 40 minutes of film time). The computer-generated, translucent image of the 'friendly spirit' (from the Harvey Comics' character Casper the Friendly Ghost) - was the first fully synthetic speaking character with a natural and distinct personality expressing emotion.
The City of Lost Children (1995, Fr.) (aka La Cité des Enfants Perdus) This surreal French film, by co-directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, reportedly had the greatest number of digital special effects, of the greatest length, ever made to date by a wholly French film crew. It was a dream fantasy science fiction tale about a dystopian world, in which a morose, bald-headed and mad scientist named Krank (Daniel Emilfork) lived in a laboratory located on a coastal oil rig surrounded by a minefield. He suffered from a lack of dreaming, and had grown prematurely old (and wanted to slow his aging), so he went about kidnapping innocent young children from their homes to extract and steal their dreams, often while wearing a Santa Claus outfit. The opening credits sequence, in which multiple Santas invaded a young boy's bedroom employed a special effect known as 'warping' to produce a nightmarish effect (causing the image to bend, warp, and distort) - it was also used in the film's final dream sequence. The kidnappings were performed by Krank's hired blind cultish group of 'Cyclops' (possessing a mechanical, video-camera third eye or Optacon, worn over their left eye, to provide vision) - their viewpoints were seen in greenish POV shots. Special effects shots were also used to multiply the image of Krank's six narcoleptic cloned assistants (Dominique Pinon) within a single shot or scene, and also used in the sequence of a flea (magnified in size) unleashed by an opium-addicted circus owner/organ-grinder to inject victims with a toxin that caused them to become violent. There were also some morphing sequences, changing individual's faces from old to young and vice-versa. The film's main story was about the kidnapping of a fearless blonde 5 year-old orphan or 'little brother' named Denree (Joseph Lucien) and the efforts of a silent, kind-hearted sideshow Strongman named One (Ron Perlman) and precocious 9 year-old Miette (Judith Vittet), the leader of an orphan band, to rescue the boy, by finding their way into Krank’s laboratory. One of the film's most remarkable sequences was the Rube Goldberg-like chain of events of a teardrop, ultimately causing a freighter to crash into a pier. The sequence of events follows: One was turned violent after being infected by the flea, and he slapped Miette across the face Her teardrop (CGI) flew out of her eye and was propelled into a spider-web The web shimmered in the light, which reflected onto a sleeping green parrot with an orange beak The parrot was awakened and chirped The chirping annoyed a sleeping golden retriever which began barking The barking angered a homeless man who threw an empty wine bottle at the dog to get it to stop barking The bottle missed and crashed near a seagull The startled seagull flew away and pooped in mid-air The poop hit the windshield of a passing truck, and blocked the driver's vision The driver crashed his truck into a fire hydrant The fire hydrant burst and caused a giant waterspout The water flooded the street, entered a sewage drain, and carried three rats on a tin plate into Chez Rosette nightclub Top-less nightclub performers, scared by the rats, exited screaming into the street The topless women distracted an electrician working on a nearby telephone pole, causing a giant spark The city's electricity was accidentally shut off The lack of power and black-out (for a lighthouse) caused a freighter navigating through the fog to crash into the pier The pier was destroyed, and One and Miette were thrown into the water - restoring everything to normal	Warping Optacon vision Clones CGI-Flea Start of Teardrop Sequence Morphing